Tuang child Rare and strange Descent Commentary

Raymond Dart primatology

Tuang child

• The fossil from the lime mine at Tuang
• was the first remains of Australopithecus africansus found,
• the skull of a child in a box of bones
• of monkeys, hyraxes, and gazelles given to Raymond Dart
• who chaired the anatomy department
• at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.
• Dart realized that the skull was evidence
• of an early previously unknown human-like hominid,
• and for over twenty years Dart’s claims were disregarded
• because he was not part of the scientific community.

Rare and strange

• Australopithecus africansus lived between two
• and three million years ago, during the Lower
• Paleolithic.
• The skull of the Tuang child was found
• in a breccia-filled cave that blasting at the
• limeworks had exposed.
• Bones of this species are rare, having been found only
• at Taung, Sterkfontein, Makapansgat, and Gladysvale in
• southern Africa.
• The fact that evidence has survived is strange; that anyone
• found it is strange; that Dart understood its significance
• is also strange.

Descent

• The brothers and sisters of Jesus
• are those who love him,
• so we make our family
• by loving others.
• Extinct and precious creatures—
• Cambrian oddities, Archaeopteryx,
• Neanderthals, and the Tuang child
• —are my lost children.
• Birds of all sizes—
• gold finches and sparrows,
• egrets and kestrels
• —are my brothers and sisters.
• I love all baby animals;
• I love flowers that wither in the hot sun;
• I love stray cats and squirrels;
• I love whales; I love trees,
• salmon, bears, wolves, and deer;
• I love spiders that others step on;
• I love suicides and victims of violence;
• I love those who are lost in their heads;
• I love hungry children and I love parents
• who go hungry for their children.
• These are all family to me.